John Thune

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, the Senator from Utah has an amendment he is going to speak to in a moment. I just want to say one thing. I appreciate the observation made by the Senator from New Hampshire Ms. Ayotte with regard to this going through a regular order process. If this were a serious discussion, there would have been an opportunity to have a debate at the appropriate committee, the HELP Committee. You just heard great presentations by the Senator from Nebraska and the Senator from New Hampshire on amendments that they would like to have considered and debated and voted on--substantive amendments that address what is at the heart of this issue. I think we all understand what this is about. I mentioned this morning on the floor the New York Times story from a couple weeks ago about what the intention is with regard to these issues. Again, this is from the New York Times story, and I quote: ``to be timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama.'' ``Democrats concede,'' the Times reports, ``that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them.'' The article goes on to say-- and I quote again: Privately, White House officials say they have no intention of searching for any grand bargain with Republicans on any of these issues. ``The point isn't to compromise''. . . . That is reporting from the New York Times, and quoting a White House official with regard to this. This is clearly designed as a political ploy, as my colleagues from New Hampshire and Nebraska pointed out. If we were serious about this, there would be an open process where we could consider amendments-- amendments that improve and strengthen the legislation that is before us--and actually it would be a better approach to addressing the issue that is before us; that is, to try to create better salaries, better wages, better opportunities for women. I say that as somebody who is the father of two adult daughters who are both in the workplace. I want to see them have every opportunity to advance themselves and to maximize the potential they have. But we cannot do that if we have policies coming out of Washington, DC, that make it more difficult, more expensive to create jobs, that throw a big wet blanket on our economy, and stifle the growth we need to create those types of opportunities for all Americans. The Senator from Utah is here. He is going to speak to his amendment. But I think it is very clear what this is about; that is, simply trying to score a political point rather than have a serious, meaningful, substantive debate about solving an issue. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I think what we just heard was a number of our Members have amendments they are going to talk about and offer when we get on the bill--and I assume we will at some point--so we can debate and vote on them. We are talking about an issue that is important to people across this country, and we have amendments that we think would improve, strengthen, make better the bill that is going to be on the floor that has been described as the Pay Equity Act by the Democrats. We actually think there is a better way to do this. We think there is a way that actually would improve the wages, provide better job opportunities, and better opportunities for advancement for women. This morning the majority leader quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson who said, ``America is another name for opportunity.'' I could not agree more with that statement. The American dream is to work hard and achieve upward mobility. Americans want good jobs, and they want to earn a fair wage. But the current Obama economy is doing everything it can to hurt the American dream. The economy is stagnant. There are 10 million Americans who are unemployed--nearly 4 million for 6 months or longer. Household income has fallen. Right now there are 3.7 million more women living in poverty than there were when the President took office. I will repeat that. There are 3.7 million more women living in poverty today than there were when the President took office. The median income for women has dropped by $733 since President Obama took office. That is why this body should be focused on enacting policies that lift the government- imposed burdens that impede job opportunities and economic growth. I have offered an amendment--and I just asked unanimous consent to be able to have it debated and voted on when we get on this bill--that actually is focused on enacting policies that lift the government- imposed burdens that impede job opportunities and economic growth. It is called the Good Jobs, Good Wages, and Good Hours Act. It would help return America to a place where there are good job opportunities. My amendment would help create good-paying jobs by reining in burdensome regulatory requirements, shielding workers from the damaging effects of ObamaCare, approving the Keystone XL Pipeline, and providing permanent tax relief to employers that are looking to expand and hire. Republicans could not agree more that women should have equal opportunities and pay in the workplace. Unfortunately, the legislation our friends on the other side are pushing will not accomplish that goal. Their legislation would increase Federal regulations that would cut flexibility in the workplace for working moms and end merit pay that rewards quality work. The Democrats seem to be trying to change the subject of how their ideas are actually hurting women in the workforce. Of those affected by the Democrats' ObamaCare 30-hour workweek that is reducing wages, 63 percent are women. So that policy of going to a 30-hour workweek that was defined as such in ObamaCare, 63 percent of the impact of that is being felt by women. Of the roughly 500,000 jobs that CBO projects will be lost by the end of 2016 thanks to the Democrats' 40-percent minimum wage hike, 235,000 of those--or 57 percent--would be jobs that are held by women. Disproportionately, these policies are going to hurt women. The poverty rate for women has increased to 16.3 percent from 14.4 percent as of when the President took office. So the poverty rate is higher. We have women who are living in worse economic conditions than when the President took office. If the Democrats were truly serious about fixing that problem--if they are truly serious about helping women--they would work with us on bills to create jobs and to expand workplace opportunities for women and for men as well. That is exactly what my amendment does. It addresses the problems created by ObamaCare, it includes a provision pushed by Senator Collins that would restore the 40-hour workweek I mentioned earlier, and it will finally repeal the job-destroying medical device tax for which Senators Toomey, Hatch, and Coats have been tirelessly fighting. My amendment ensures that veterans and the long-term unemployed are not punished by the costs of the ObamaCare employer mandate in that legislation. Senator Blunt has raised that issue in the Senate on behalf of veterans, and in the House a similar bill passed by a margin of 406 to 1. My amendment also provides permanent, targeted tax relief to millions of small businesses. Small businesses create 65 percent of all new jobs. Yet this administration has done little more than punish them with more regulations and higher taxes. The amendment also halts harmful EPA regulations until the EPA conducts additional analysis of the impact those existing rules would have on jobs. It is time this body recognizes that the policies the other side is advancing are not achieving the outcomes they claim will occur. We need to renew our commitment to helping all Americans, including women, find job opportunities that allow them to achieve the American dream. We need to return this country to a place where America truly is another name for opportunity. Earlier today the President and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, Karen Kerrigan, wrote an article that says this proposal I am speaking about ``offers a set of really good policy proposals to help women entrepreneurs and women in the workforce.'' That is why I sought unanimous consent to have this amendment debated and voted on, along with many of my colleagues, including the Senator from Nebraska Mrs. Fischer and the Senator from New Hampshire Ms. Ayotte, who are here to speak about amendments they want to put forward as a part of this debate. I asked unanimous consent earlier for those amendments to be considered as well and once again that has been blocked by the majority leader. That is the wrong way to deal with an issue of this consequence. If we want to help people--if we want to create jobs and grow the economy, which ultimately helps lift all the boats, improves the standard of living for middle-class families, women and men--the best way to do that is to get a growing, vibrant economy instead of a stagnant economy, which is what we have today, with too many who have been unemployed for a long period of time. I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will come to the conclusion that if we are going to debate this issue, we need to debate it in a comprehensive way that takes into consideration all of the ideas out there, including those that will be offered by my colleagues this afternoon. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE. That is correct.

Mr. THUNE. The McConnell amendment has to deal with flexibility in the workplace and comp time, the Fischer amendment has to do with antidiscrimination in the workplace, and I believe the Lee amendment also deals with comp time flexibility in the workplace. The Senator from Tennessee, Senator Alexander, is here, and I think he can speak to his amendment. Most of them deal with the pending business, S. 2199, which is the Pay Equity Act that the majority leader expects to get a cloture vote on later. We simply ask to have an opportunity to offer amendments that pertain to that bill, on issues we think are important in addressing the issue that is before us.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, 2 weeks ago the New York Times published an article on the congressional Democrats' plan for the rest of the year. It boiled down to one thing: Campaigning. That is right; 8 months out from the election, Democrats in Congress have given up on legislating. Instead, they are going to spend the next 8 months focused on show votes, which will--and I quote from the story--``be timed to coincide with campaign-style trips by President Obama.'' While these votes will focus on ``pocketbook issues'' Democrats hope will appeal to voters, the votes are not designed to actually accomplish anything. The New York Times goes on to say: Democrats concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them. The article goes on to say: Privately, White House officials say they have no intention of searching for any grand bargain with Republicans on any of these issues. ``The point isn't to compromise,'' a senior White House official said. So that is where we are. The economy is stagnant, unemployment is hovering at recession-level highs, 10 million Americans are unemployed--nearly 4 million of them for 6 months or longer--household income has fallen, health care costs are soaring, and Democrats have decided to give up doing anything about it so they can get reelected in November. This political strategy was front and center last week when Democrats blocked all Republican amendments during the Senate debate of the employment benefits extension bill. Republicans wanted to offer a number of amendments that were focused specifically on job creation. After all, the only reason we are considering extending unemployment benefits for the 13th time since 2008 is because so many Americans still don't have jobs. While unemployment benefits can provide limited short-term help, they do nothing to get unemployed Americans what they really want--steady, good-paying jobs with an opportunity for advancement. Republicans thought that we should accompany yet another extension of emergency unemployment benefits with measures to make it easier and cheaper to create jobs for the millions of Americans currently searching for work. We proposed amendments to create jobs with measures such as reining in burdensome regulatory requirements and improving job training for people who are unemployed. Democrats, however, didn't want to take any votes on Republican proposals, so they simply refused to allow amendments to be considered. That is not the mark of a party that is serious about helping the unemployed. If Democrats were really serious, they would be focused on permanent relief through jobs rather than merely treating the symptoms of unemployment. Democrats brought up unemployment benefits not because they offer real, long-term help to the unemployed but because they think these benefits might win them a few votes in November. They are planning to keep on doing the same thing. Soon Democrats plan to bring up a 40-percent minimum wage hike that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will cost up to 500,000 jobs by the end of 2016. By the way, 57 percent of those job losses--according to the CBO--would be held by women. But that is not stopping the Democrats who hope that a minimum wage hike will gain them votes at the polls even if it hurts workers in the process. This week Senator Reid filed cloture on the motion to proceed to a similarly political bill, the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act. All Senate Republicans believe in equal pay for equal work. Paycheck fairness has been the law of the land since 1963. Democrats are playing politics with equal pay and attempting to distract from the real harm that their policies have done to women. Right now there are 3.7 million more women living in poverty than there were when the President took office. Since the President took office, the poverty rate for women has increased from 14.4 percent to 16.3 percent. Income for female college graduates has dropped by over $1,400, and the median income for women is down by $733 since the President took office. It would be nice if this legislation that is being proposed by the Democratic majority provided women with real economic help, but it is far more likely to line the pockets of trial lawyers. In fact, this election-year ploy would actually hurt women by increasing Federal regulations that would cut flexibility in the workforce for working moms and end merit pay to reward quality work. If Democrats were really serious about helping women, they would work with us on bills to create jobs and to expand workplace opportunities for women as well as for men--bills such as Senator Rubio's legislation to amend the National Labor Relations Act to allow employers to give merit-based pay increases to good workers; or Senator Collins' bill to repeal ObamaCare's 30-hour workweek rule, which is reducing hours and lowering wages for many workers, particularly women, who make up 63 percent of those affected; or the bill proposed by Senator Mike Lee, which would help employers balance work and family life by allowing private sector employers to give workers the choice of monetary compensation or comp time for the overtime hours that they work; or Senator McConnell and Senator Ayotte's bill, which would give hourly workers access to flexible work arrangements like comp time off and flexible credit hours; or my bill combining several of my colleagues' proposals to stimulate job creation and increase hours and wages through energy development, job training, and regulatory relief. Then, of course, there is Senator Fischer's proposal to give women the tools and knowledge they need to fight discrimination at work. Many of these proposals have passed the House of Representatives and are awaiting action by the Senate. These bills would create new jobs, open new opportunities, and help reverse the economic decline that women have experienced over the past 5 years. But Democrats don't seem to be interested in providing economic relief to women. They are interested in elections and scoring political points. Democrats can go on campaigning for the rest of the year if they want. They can twist the legislative process for their own political ends and ignore the economic pain they have caused women and men. Meanwhile, the middle class in this country continues to fall further and further behind. Republicans in the Senate will continue to propose legislation to create jobs and opportunities for Americans and help make up the ground that the American people have lost in the Obama economy. Democrats can still change their minds and join us, and I hope they will because the situation has not gotten any better. We still have chronic high unemployment, lower take-home pay, and lower household income. We have almost 4 million people who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. The labor participation rate--the number of people who are actually in the labor workforce today--is at the lowest level we have seen in 35 years, meaning there are millions of Americans who left the workforce. Those statistics are crying out for solutions that will do something about the need for jobs in our economy, that will do something about growing and expanding our economy, so those people who are unemployed can find the work they need to improve their standard of living and that of their families as well. So I hope all of these issues I have mentioned--these are all amendments that have been filed by my colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle. So far there is no indication, no suggestion that any of these amendments are going to get an opportunity to be offered, to be debated, and to be voted on--amendments that actually would improve the outlook for not only men in this country but women as well, by growing the economy, expanding the economy, creating the types of good-paying jobs that will create opportunities for advancement for hard-working Americans. If the Senate is going to continue to be a place where debate and amendments are shut down, blocked by the other side simply so they can have show votes designed to appeal to a political audience as we head into the midterm elections; if we aren't going to be doing anything to solve the real-world problems millions of Americans who are unemployed have, or millions of Americans who have been hurt by this economy, and millions of Americans who have seen their standard of living and their quality of life eroded by bad policies coming out of Washington, DC, that make it more difficult and more expensive to create jobs--that is what we ought to be focused on. Republicans come to the floor, as we did last week when we were debating unemployment insurance, with amendments designed specifically at growing the economy and creating jobs. At every turn we have been blocked from offering those amendments and, in turn, we are talking about nothing more than political rhetoric in an election year that does nothing to address the real problems of the American people. They deserve better. We can do better. I hope we will. I hope the Democrats will change their minds and join us and allow us to have that debate, to have those votes, and allow us to do something meaningful for middle-class families. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I rise to speak to my amendment No. 2959 to the unemployment insurance legislation that is before us. The amendment is called the Good Jobs, Good Wages, and Good Hours Act. Twelve times Congress has voted to extend emergency unemployment benefits since 2008, and what do we have to show for those 12 extensions of these benefits. More than 10 million Americans remain unemployed. Of those, more than 3.8 million Americans have been unemployed for longer than 6 months. Millions more remain underemployed or have simply dropped out of the workforce altogether, too discouraged to even look for work in this stagnant economy. Over that same period a Democrat-led Senate and the Obama White House have done little but grow the size of the government and shrink the size of the middle class. In 2009, Congress passed a $1 trillion stimulus bill that poured taxpayer dollars into projects such as Solyndra and a battery manufacturer that is now owned by the Chinese. It failed to create the jobs and economic growth that was promised by the White House, but it succeeded in creating 5 straight years of record deficits. In 2010 Congress enacted ObamaCare--essentially a government takeover of one-sixth of our economy with 2,700 pages of new laws and 25,000 pages of new regulations. It didn't fulfill the President's promise of lowering health care costs or letting families keep their doctors, but it has succeeded in canceling health plans and raising taxes. In 2010 Congress enacted Dodd-Frank. It hasn't fixed too big to fail, but in one respect it has succeeded in creating jobs. It is estimated that more than 30,000 employees will be required to file the paperwork associated with the $18 billion in Dodd-Frank compliance costs for our financial sector. Meanwhile, Congress has failed to put a check on the EPA, which continues pushing regulations that have record-setting price tags. These regulations aren't creating jobs, but they are fulfilling the President's promise to make energy prices skyrocket. Five years into the Obama administration and the scorecard doesn't look very good, with $456 billion in new regulations, $1.7 trillion in new taxes, 10.4 million people unemployed, and economic growth far behind the pace of other post-World War II recoveries. So here we are debating the 13th extension of emergency unemployment benefits in the past 5 years because we have 3.8 million people in this country, workers who have been out of work for more than 6 months. If enacted, these benefits would last until June. Then what? Are we going to have a 14th extension, perhaps a 15th extension? Without job creating policies, this 13th extension is just another bandaid that doesn't address the true causes of chronic joblessness that plague the Obama economy. My Republican colleagues and I came to the floor yet again this week to debate and to vote on amendment ideas that will change the course the Obama administration has put the country on. We have offered dozens of amendments that will stimulate private-sector investment, create jobs, and make energy and health care more affordable. I have worked with many of my colleagues on a package of job-creating ideas that we would like to add to this 13th extension of emergency unemployment insurance benefits. My amendment, as I said, is called the Good Jobs, Good Wages, Good Hours Act, and it includes many of these ideas. I would like to share a few of them with my colleagues in the Senate so people understand that when we come to the floor to talk about offering amendments and getting votes on amendments, we are serious. We have real substantive ideas that we believe will address the fundamental issue--the underlying cause of chronic high unemployment-- by getting people back to work through job creation, through an expanding and growing economy. My amendment includes a provision that has been pushed by Senator Hoeven that would finally approve the Keystone XL Pipeline. After 5 years of delay, it is time to approve the pipeline and the 40,000 jobs it will support. Senator Hoeven has been the leading advocate of that here in the Senate. The amendment I am offering includes Leader McConnell's legislation to stop EPA's war on affordable energy. Leader McConnell's bill puts consumers ahead of liberal and environmental groups by stopping costly regulations that will make it even more difficult for the middle class to make ends meet. My amendment includes a provision pushed by Senators Barrasso and Hoeven to approve more LNG exports to our NATO allies and to the Ukraine, something that is especially timely in light of what is going on in that part of the world. Now is the ideal time to create more domestic jobs while breaking our allies' dependence on Russian energy supplies. My amendment also addresses the problems created by ObamaCare. It includes a provision pushed by Senator Collins that will restore the 40-hour workweek. It will finally repeal the job-destroying medical device tax, which Senators Toomey and Hatch have been tirelessly fighting, which has cost us, by some estimates, 30,000 jobs already in our economy because of this new job-killing tax. My amendment ensures that veterans and the long-term unemployed are not punished by the costs of the ObamaCare employer mandate. It includes a provision Senator Blunt has authored that raised this issue in the Senate on behalf of veterans, and in the House a similar bill passed by a vote of 406 to 1. Certainly we can find few Democrats who are willing to provide ObamaCare relief to veterans and the long-term unemployed. My amendment also provides permanent targeted tax relief to millions of small businesses. Small businesses create 65 percent of all new jobs. Yet this administration has done little more than punish them with more regulations and higher taxes. This amendment makes permanent higher expensing levels, provides capital gains tax relief for investing in small businesses, and expands options to increase cashflow at Main Street businesses across the country. It allows small businesses to deduct more startup costs, and puts the selfemployed on an equal playing field when paying for health care costs. This amendment also includes commonsense regulatory reform put forward by Senator Portman that will ensure taxpayers know the true cost of new regulations. It requires agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis and provide advanced notice of any major new regulations. Finally, this amendment includes the House-passed SKILLS Act, which Senator Scott has introduced as an amendment to the UI bill. Currently, we have 50 Federal worker training programs spread across nine Federal agencies. Many of them are duplicative and few of them have been evaluated for whether or not they are effective. This amendment would combine 35 of those programs into one Workforce Investment Fund that will empower governors to tailor programs to their States and benefit employers and employees alike. My point simply is that Senate Republicans stand ready to offer more than just the status quo. We understand the long-term unemployed want more than just 20 more weeks of unemployment benefits. They want a job. We understand those who are struggling to adapt in a changing economy want more than a morass of broken worker training programs. They want relevant training that prepares them for the jobs that are in demand today. We understand that low-income families want more than government programs designed to help them just get by. They want more opportunity and a better future for their children. We understand that Main Street businesses across the country cannot afford endless regulations coming from Washington, DC. They want a chance to succeed and to fulfill their American dream. I am hopeful that at least some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle understand that basic principle too and will join us in including job- creating measures as part of this 13th extension of emergency unemployment benefits. We can do better for the American people. We should do better by the American people. We have serious proposals, serious job-creating proposals that don't get a chance to see the light of day because the majority party in the Senate blocks amendments from being offered, blocks amendments from being debated, and blocks amendments from being voted on. So what do we have. We have the status quo. That means that for the 13th time we have to extend unemployment insurance benefits to people who have been unemployed for way too long because we have failed to put policies in place that are actually good for job creation, that are actually the right types of incentives for our small businesses to hire, that take away the burdensome cost of taxes and regulations that make it more expensive and more difficult for our small businesses to hire, and because we fail to take into consideration the impact that so many of these things we do here in Washington have on hardworking people in this country who are trying to lift their families into the middle class and to provide a better future for their children and grandchildren. That is what every American wants. That is what every family in America aspires to. We ought to do something about it. Another meager government check that helps people get by isn't the way to a brighter and better future. The way to a brighter and better future is a good- paying job with an opportunity for advancement. That is what we ought to be focused on, and that is what the provisions I just mentioned, that are included in my amendment, would do. My amendment incorporates many of the ideas Members on our side have advanced, all with an eye toward creating jobs and growing and expanding the economy in a way that will create those good-paying opportunities and give people a better chance at a better future. So I really hope we will get the chance to vote. We can't, evidently, get individual amendments that have been offered by individual Members voted on, so we have taken a number of ideas and incorporated them into this amendment, an alternative to what is being proposed by the Democrats, which simply treats the symptom of this problem but does nothing to address the underlying cause of the problem. We want to focus on the problem; we want to focus on the cause; we want to focus on solutions; and we believe the Senate ought to be the place where we have an opportunity to vote on those very solutions. So I encourage my colleagues on both sides to open this process. Let us allow the American people to have their voices heard--not just the voices of a few but the voices of the many people in the Senate who have good ideas about how to create jobs, grow the economy, and build a better future for our children and grandchildren. Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. I thank my colleague from Missouri. Senator Blunt and I have, as he said, worked very hard when it comes to the overreach of government agencies and the burdens of regulations, the cost of regulations and what that is doing to a lot of middle-class families and their pocketbooks. I mentioned earlier a couple of amendments I had filed here that pertained to energy costs in my home State of South Dakota, one of which sets a $50 million threshold over which a regulation proposed by the EPA would have to be voted on by the Congress of the United States, and if Congress rejected it, the EPA would have to go back to the drawing board to come up with an alternative approach. That amendment is amendment No. 2895, and I think it fits perfectly with what we are talking about today, which is growing our economy, creating jobs, and trying to do what actually would get people back to work. Certainly, the burdensome cost of regulation is a tremendous deterrent and impediment to job creation in this country. I ask unanimous consent that it be in order for me to offer my amendment No. 2895.

Mr. THUNE. I thank the Senator from Wyoming for his observations about health care and more particularly about jobs. We are talking about a 13th extension now of unemployment insurance benefits which, in my view, does treat a symptom, but it doesn't do anything to address the underlying cause. The cause is we have too many people in this country who are out of the work, which means we need to create more jobs, and that means making it less expensive and less difficult to hire people, not driving up the cost of hiring. The Senator from Wyoming has just touched on one of the issues that is affecting hiring in this country; that is, ObamaCare. You can say what you want--and the other side may have some stories, which we will not dispute, unlike when we come up here and we share the stories, the real-life stories of some of our constituents, and then we have the majority leader of the Senate say those stories aren't true, those stories are all made up. Then he came to the floor last week in response to more bad news about ObamaCare and said the reason people aren't signing up for it is they just aren't educated enough about the Internet. What he is essentially saying is that the people of this country, No. 1, aren't telling the truth and; No. 2, aren't very smart. That is not what I believe and I don't think that is what any of my colleagues believe. We do believe there are things we ought to be doing to get Americans back to work. Repealing ObamaCare would be a good place to start because it is making the cost of growing your business, expanding your business in this country, dramatically higher. It is also raising the premiums and the deductibles for people all across this country, for middle-class families, and giving them fewer options when it comes to doctors and to hospitals. I want to talk just briefly, if I might, about the cost of overregulation and what it is doing to our economy. We have had an opportunity during this discussion on unemployment insurance to talk about some of the things that we would do if we would be given a chance to offer amendments. Typically, the case around here, what happens, the practice and pattern of late is that the majority leader fills the tree and blocks us from offering amendments. We have a lot of Members on our side who have great ideas about things that would actually create jobs, actually grow the economy. One of the things we know is costing jobs and hurting the economy is the cost of overregulation, destroying jobs and making it more difficult for our job creators. In fact, the estimate is it is almost one-half trillion dollars in the cost of regulations since the President has come to office--almost one-half trillion dollars added--added cost in this country. That figure is larger than the entire economy of Peru. It is larger than the entire economy of Sweden. Think about that. The cost of regulation in this country since this President has come to office is larger than the entire economies of either Sweden or Peru. One of the largest contributors to these new regulations and compliance costs is the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. They came out with the Boiler MACT regulations, they came out with the Utility MACT regulations, and they came out with tier 3 fuel standards. All of these things that the EPA has finalized are some of the most costly regulations we have seen from any agency in recent history. These rules will impose billions of dollars in costs on energy producers and manufacturers, which are going to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. Unfortunately, for consumers already hurting in the Obama economy, more bad news is on the way. The EPA is currently working on regulations for ozone standards, greenhouse gas emissions for powerplants, and a dramatic expansion of the Clean Water Act that will reach into ditches and gullies all across America. I would like to briefly touch on the impacts EPA mandates, including greenhouse gas standards, regional haze requirements, Utility MACT, and Boiler MACT, are having on energy prices back in my home State of South Dakota. Unfortunately, South Dakotans are on the frontlines of this administration's war on affordable energy. In 2008, then-Senator Obama promised to make energy prices skyrocket. Today, in my home State, he is fulfilling that promise. Just Monday Black Hills Power, a utility company in western South Dakota, announced a proposed rate increase to cover the cost of new EPA mandates. If that rate increase is approved, the average customer's rates will increase by $130 a year. For a family living in western South Dakota, $130 can go a long way toward putting food on the table or making a car payment. South Dakota is a rural State with energy-intensive manufacturing and agricultural sectors of our economy. Families have to travel long distances. We are a cold-weather climate. We see dramatic swings in seasonal temperatures that create uncertainty when opening monthly utility bills. Unfortunately, the EPA's backdoor energy tax, which is already beginning to hit South Dakota's families, is about to get even more expensive. The tier 3 gasoline standards, greenhouse gas regulations, and new ozone rules are a train wreck of new regulations that are going to further drive up energy costs and destroy jobs. That is why I have offered two commonsense amendments to rein in these costly EPA regulations. The first amendment would require Congress to approve any EPA regulation with a projected cost of more than $50 million a year. If Congress rejects that rule, the EPA would be forced to go back to the drawing board and pursue less costly alternatives. From regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act to regulating streams and ditches under the Clean Water Act, this EPA stretches authority well beyond what Congress intended when we created a Federal-State environment regulatory structure decades ago. This EPA needs to be reined in, and the best way to do that is by creating congressional oversight of major regulations. My second amendment would create another check on the EPA's ever- expanding regulatory reach. This would require the Department of Energy and the Government Accountability Office to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of EPA's proposed greenhouse gas regulations on powerplants. If, based on this study, the DOE, the Department of Energy, or GAO determined that the new regulations would raise energy prices or destroy jobs, the new regulations could not take effect. The EPA could still propose new regulations on new and existing powerplants, but those regulations couldn't be finalized until it certified that those new rules would not negatively impact jobs or energy costs. We have over 10 million people who remain unemployed. Economic growth and job creation remain stagnant and middle-class incomes have dropped by $3,000 per family over the past 5 years. The last thing middle-class families need is for their pocketbooks to be further stretched by misguided government policies that drive up energy costs. It is time to put a check on the EPA. It is time to have an open debate, an amendment process on commonsense proposals to increase congressional oversight, and it is time to put consumers ahead of liberal environmental groups. I encourage my colleagues on the floor with me today to continue pushing for policies that make energy more abundant and more affordable. Unlike the heavyhanded regulations we have seen from the Obama administration, these policies will actually create jobs and help grow the middle class. I will continue fighting, along with my colleagues joining me on the floor today, to make sure we get votes on these policies and begin to rein in the out-of-control regulations from the Obama administration. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to talk about jobs. Once again, this week the Senate is taking up an extension of unemployment benefits, which will be the 13th such extension since 2008. Arguably, of course, we came out of an economic downturn and a lot of people were hurt by that; a lot of people were in need of help and assistance. Yet here we are, 6 years later, and we are still talking about extending unemployment benefits. Why? Because we haven't created enough jobs necessary to get the people who have been unemployed for a period of time back to work. Once again we have Senate Democrats ignoring the real issue, which is the lack of jobs that has left so many Americans struggling to find work. The solution to years of high unemployment is not perpetual extensions of unemployment benefits but the creation of new jobs-- steady, good-paying jobs with the opportunity for advancement. Workers don't want to spend years on meager government benefits; they want to return to work. But in order for that to happen, there have to be jobs available, and there haven't been too many jobs over the past 5 years. That is why Republicans have proposed a number of amendments to the unemployment insurance legislation that would remove obstacles to job creation and encourage businesses to expand and hire new workers. Unfortunately, Democrats have shown little interest in job creation over the past 5 years, so they are happy to extend unemployment benefits 13 times in 6 years, but they are unwilling to actually do anything to treat the causes of unemployment and to help hurting workers get the jobs they are looking for. In fact, Democrats' record on job creation has been pretty dismal. There was the stimulus bill, which completely failed to bring about the economic growth the President promised. There are thousands of new regulations the administration has placed on businesses which stifle job creation. The backdoor national energy tax which the EPA is trying to put on power companies in this country is going to be passed on. People across this country who can least afford it are going to be looking at much higher utility bills. We have the Keystone Pipeline, which has generated open hostility from Members on the other side, and of course we know that has immediate job creation potential. The Keystone Pipeline, according to the President's own State Department, would create 22,000 shovel-ready jobs, which could become available as soon as we get the pipeline approved. Of course, there is the ObamaCare legislation, passed several years ago, which continues to wreak havoc on job creation in this country. Chief among the burdens ObamaCare places on business is the employer mandate, which requires all businesses with 50 or more full-time workers, which the administration defines as 30 hours or more a week, to provide government-approved health insurance or to pay a fine. That is financially impossible for thousands of nonprofits and businesses with small profit margins such as restaurants. As a result, many of these businesses are being forced to cut workers' hours below 30 hours a week to reduce the number of full-time employees on their books. And when they hire new workers, they are hiring part-time--not full-time--employees. The employer mandate is also discouraging a lot of small businesses from hiring at all. Businesses that planned to expand are now deciding they will be safer financially if they keep their businesses below 50 employees. As a result, many new jobs are simply not being created. Then there is the costly tax on lifesaving medical devices such as pacemakers and insulin pumps. This ObamaCare tax, which is so economically damaging that it is opposed by many Democrats as well as Republicans, has already affected more than 300,000 jobs in the medical device industry. If the tax is not repealed soon, many more jobs in the industry will be lost entirely or sent overseas. Ultimately, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that ObamaCare will result in up to 2.5 million fewer full-time workers. On top of that, the Budget Committee estimates the law will reduce wages by more than $1 trillion. Right now more than 10 million Americans are unemployed. Nearly 4 million of them have been unemployed for more than 6 months. Perpetually extending unemployment benefits does not fix that problem. We need to start creating jobs. I have an amendment to the legislation before us. It is called the Solutions to Long-Term Unemployment Act. It includes four commonsense measures that would support the unemployed and make it easier and cheaper for employers to hire new workers. For starters, my amendment would provide direct support to unemployed workers by offering a one-time, low-interest loan of up to $10,000 to allow an individual who has been out of work for 6 months or longer to relocate to a city or State that has a lower unemployment rate. Unemployment rates vary substantially across the United States. My home State of South Dakota, for example, has an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent, which is far below the national average. We have a hard time in my State of South Dakota, believe it or not, in actually finding workers to fill the jobs. I talk to employers all the time in my State who are trying to find people to fill the jobs that are available in South Dakota. So moving to a State with a low unemployment rate can substantially increase workers' chances of getting a job. Unfortunately, most long- term unemployed Americans lack the means to pack up and move to a new city or State. My amendment would help ensure that lack of resources does not prevent Americans from heading out to where the jobs are. My amendment also would support workers by cleaning up the mess that is Federal worker training programs. Currently, there are more than 50--50--worker training programs spread across nine different Federal bureaucracies. Needless to say, that leads to a lot of duplication. And worse, a majority of these programs have never been evaluated to see if they actually work. My amendment would consolidate 35 of these programs into one streamlined program and move control to the States. With every State facing different unemployment challenges, trying to administer a one-size- fits-all program from Washington makes absolutely no sense. Putting States in control would allow each State to tailor its workforce training programs to the needs of its own citizens. My amendment would also provide two incentives to encourage businesses to hire the long-term unemployed. First, my amendment would permanently exempt long-term unemployed workers from ObamaCare's requirement that businesses with 50 or more workers provide government-approved health care to their employees or pay a fine. Many employers want to hire more workers but they are afraid. They are afraid of the financial hit their businesses will take if they end up subject to ObamaCare's costly mandate. My amendment would allow businesses to hire those new workers without that fear. This idea recently gained broad bipartisan support in the House of Representatives. The House has acted on a similar measure to exempt veterans from the ObamaCare employer mandate headcount. That measure passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 406 to 1. That is a strong indication that we need to provide relief from ObamaCare's costly mandates to ensure those who need and want to work are able to find good jobs. I am confident that if the majority leader would allow this provision to get a vote on the Senate floor, we would see a similar outcome that would benefit long-term unemployed individuals. Finally, my amendment would provide another hiring incentive by granting a 6-month payroll tax holiday for each long-term unemployed worker that a business hires. For an employer hiring a worker that is making $40,000, that 6-month payroll holiday means a savings of $1,240. If it is the Senate's will to extend these benefits, Republicans want to ensure this extension is paired with the kind of help that will actually ensure we do not have to extend unemployment benefits a 14th or a 15th time. That is why we are here offering measures to address the root cause of unemployment--the lack of jobs. It is vital that we stop putting bandaids over the problem and start focusing on solutions. Democrats may not have made job creation a priority for the last 5 years, but they can start making it a priority today. And they can do that by the majority leader allowing votes on Republican proposals to make it easier and less expensive to create jobs. We just heard--we keep hearing--proposals that are being brought to the floor by Democrats that will drive up the cost of doing business, make it harder, create more obstacles to hiring people and to creating jobs. The proposed 40-percent increase in the minimum wage, for example--I have visited with employers in my State of South Dakota, small employers. I had a meeting with employers, where the size of their businesses range from 30 employees up to about 200 employees, all of whom concluded that an increase of that magnitude in the minimum wage would make it much harder for them to grow their businesses and to create jobs. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that raising the minimum wage would cost our economy up to 1 million jobs. Why? Because it makes it more expensive, more difficult for employers to create those jobs and to hire new workers. As a consequence, there are fewer jobs that get created in our economy. Well, if the goal is to lift people into the middle class, to get more people to work, I do not know why we would look at policies that have proven in the past to make it more difficult to create jobs and cost us jobs in our economy. And we have the Congressional Budget Office saying it would cost us up to 1 million jobs and also raise costs for people in this country; in other words, the things people have to buy. It would raise prices for the things people have to rely on in their daily lives. Those are the types of things we continue to hear from the other side--proposals that, frankly, sound good and maybe poll well but when you really get down to brass tacks do not get the job done. And clearly, the object is creating jobs--something we have not done here now for 5 years because we consistently get policies from our Democratic colleagues and from the President that drive up the cost of doing business, drive up the cost of hiring new employees, put more obstacles in the way of job creation, instead of putting policies in place that we know--that we know--will create jobs, good-paying jobs, and give people an opportunity for advancement that will help lift them into the middle class. We can do it. It is high time we did it. I hope, again, that the majority leader will allow votes this week on Republican proposals--and there are many of them here--that actually will make it easier and less expensive to create jobs in this country. It is long past time that we start providing real help for the unemployed. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, yesterday the Democrats in the Senate held a news conference in which they rolled out their agenda, which has been described differently by different news organizations. The headline from the Washington Examiner said: ``Majority threatened, Democrats take up populace agenda to distract from ObamaCare.'' The Wall Street Journal headline said: ``Senate Democrats try to change subject from ObamaCare.'' The New York Times in reporting on that story, their headline was: ``Democrats, as Part of Midterm Strategy to Schedule Votes on Pocketbook Issues.'' So that was a little more, perhaps, flattering headline. In the story in the New York Times, it goes on to say: The proposals have little chance of passing. But Democrats concede that making new laws is not really the point. Rather, they are trying to force Republicans to vote against them. Later on in the story, the New York Times goes on to say: Part of the goal is to energize the Democratic base, which will be crucial to turnout in the more conservative states where the party needs to win this year. So everybody kind of gets the joke that this is really about the midterm elections. The agenda the Democrats are now rolling out is designed to try to create a distraction away from their economic record and from ObamaCare. It is interesting to me because the Democrats have been the majority in the Senate now for 8 years. So you would think by now this sort of an agenda would have been inactive. In fact, for a few years they had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. They had 60 votes and could do literally anything they wanted. Most of these items now are being rolled out because it is, as I said, an election year, and they are saying: These are things that we can do for the American people. Well, I think the American people are saying enough already. You have done enough to us. Please don't do any more. The agenda is being described as a fair shot for everyone. Well, I think the American people, perhaps, don't see it as a shot for them as they do a shot at them. If you look at the last several years as any indication of that, it hasn't worked very well. The agenda that has been advanced by the Democrats here in the Senate and by the President of the United States has left us with a sluggish economy, chronic high unemployment, massive amounts of debt, the lowest labor participation rate, literally, that we have seen in 35 years. In fact, last year the economy grew at 0.9 percent. So you have this sluggish economy sputtering along, and the American people are asking: Where are the jobs? Where is the take-home pay? Since the President took office, household income in this country has gone down--not up--by $3,700 per family. If you look at all the policies put in place by the Democratic majority, there isn't really anything that you could point to that helps create jobs mainly because it is heavy handed, top-down management from Washington, DC. The American people need policies that will unleash the American free enterprise system and unleash the entrepreneurs and small businesses that would allow them to grow this economy and expand this economy. That is better for everyone. Every middle-class American in this country wants a better quality of life, a better standard of life for their children and grandchildren than what they have experienced. This may be the first generation of Americans where this is not true. Why? Because policies in Washington, DC, make it more difficult, more expensive, to create jobs. You can go down the list. If you look at ObamaCare, according to the Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare is going to result in 2.5 million fewer full-time workers. According to the CBO, there will be 2.5 million fewer full-time workers over the next decade and $1 trillion in lower wages. Fewer jobs and lower take-home pay is what we are seeing as a result of the policies that have been put in place by the Democratic majority in the Senate and by the President of the United States. Yesterday there was another announcement about yet another delay of ObamaCare--which will be, I think, the 30th delay that we have seen so far with regard to that legislation. In speaking about that delay, the majority leader of the Senate said yesterday that he thought the delay was necessary because people weren't educated enough about how to use the Internet. Only in Washington, DC--only in Washington, DC--do you see politicians blaming the American people for their failures because that is essentially what the ObamaCare legislation is. By and large I think most people would conclude it just isn't working. It didn't add up in the first place, and it is not working. It is creating fewer jobs, higher premiums, higher deductibles, lower take-home pay for the American people, fewer choices for doctors and hospitals, and the idea that it is the fault of the American people because they are not educated enough to use the Internet--my dad is 94 years old. He lives in my hometown of Myrtle, SD, a town of about 500 people. He uses the Internet every single day. I don't think the problem is the Internet or that people in this country aren't educated enough to use the Internet. I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that incompetence here in Washington, DC, led to a failed rollout that confused millions of Americans. That is not the responsibility of, nor should we blame, the American people for that. That is government trying to do big things and not doing them well. The government doesn't do complicated things very well. So when you hear of the new agenda coming out from the Democratic majority in the Senate, that we are going to do this for the American people; we are going to do that for the American people and talk about a minimum wage increase--again, you have a Congressional Budget Office saying that raising the minimum wage by 40 percent, which is what is being proposed, would, in fact, cost the economy up to a million jobs and also would raise prices. It is going to raise prices on the people that will be hurt the most by price increases--lower-income Americans. Instead of putting policies in place that cost the American economy jobs, we ought to be looking at things that actually create jobs. We have a proposal called the Keystone Pipeline which the President's own State Department has said would create 42,000 jobs. So those are real jobs, shovel-ready jobs that would be available today. Instead we want to put policies in place that are actually going to cost the economy jobs. If you're an American citizen out there and you hear Washington, DC, is going to do more for you, yet again, you have got to be saying: Whoa, you know, hold the phone. We have seen enough of that already. We have seen this picture before, and we have seen what results when the government tries to do big and complicated things. It just doesn't work very well. The Web site rollout is a perfect example of that, as is the 2,700- page ObamaCare legislation followed by about 25,000 pages of regulations, which people in this country have to try and discern and figure out. I would submit that there are things that will create jobs. We know the Keystone Pipeline will create jobs. Passing trade promotion authority and allowing our trade negotiators to create more market opportunities for small businesses and farmers and ranchers and entrepreneurs in this country and around the world will create jobs. Passing trade promotion authority and getting the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European trade agreement enacted they say will expose American businesses to 1 billion new consumers worldwide. Those are the types of things that do create jobs, and we know that. Instead of having an election year agenda that is transparently stated to be that, why don't we actually talk about things that will create jobs and will improve the overall standard of living for people in this country? I would make one other observation, and that is another thing coming out of the administration right now, which will be incredibly harmful to the economy and make it very difficult for lower income and middle- class Americans to make ends meet, are policies coming out of the EPA that are going to drive the cost of energy. Energy is an important input. It is a huge factor in places such as South Dakota where we have a cold-weather climate and an agricultural-based economy. We travel long distances to get places. When you talk about raising the cost of energy in a State such as South Dakota, you are significantly increasing the cost of doing business in a way that will make it more difficult and more expensive to create the jobs we need, get people back to work, and get the economy growing at a faster rate. These things are harmful to job growth. I talked to a bunch of small businesses in my State last week and asked them about some of these policies. I asked them: What are the biggest obstacles right now to your success and what are things that could be done that would actually be helpful? Of course, ObamaCare is something that immediately comes up, but also the whole issue of the minimum wage. The smallest business owner I talked to I believe had 30 employees and the largest had maybe a little over 200 employees. They said, look, this is a job killer. What that means is we are not going to be able to hire as many people. It adds significant higher operating costs every year to our businesses and makes it more difficult to create the jobs for the people who actually need those jobs, most of whom, in a lot of these places, are going to be young people who are trying to get that first job and make their way up the economic ladder. There are lots of things we could talk about that do address the problem rather than just addressing the symptoms, and we want to vote on an extension. We are going to vote on an extension of unemployment insurance, which will be the thirteenth time we have done that. When you go through an economic downturn, obviously there is a need to help people who have lost jobs and been displaced in the economy. But when are we going to start focusing on the problem rather than the symptom? The problem is we have almost 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for more than 6 months. We ought to be looking at what we can do to create jobs for the people who don't have jobs in our economy. I have introduced an amendment to the unemployment insurance legislation, which I don't think is going to get voted on, that has some simple solutions. One of those things is to waive the employer mandate for any employer who hires somebody who has been unemployed for more than 6 months. So if you are a long-term unemployed person and an employer hires that person, you get a waiver from the employer mandate which could save an employer several thousand dollars a year. It also calls for a 6-month payroll tax holiday for employers, which if you have a $40,000-a-year employee on your payroll, you would save about $2,400. You could save $4,000, $5,000, or $6,000 a year in the cost of hiring someone with those two suggestions. Another suggestion is to allow people to have access to low-interest loans--up to $10,000--to relocate to places where there is lower unemployment. My State of South Dakota is looking for workers. When I travel through my communities, we can't find workers. One of the biggest obstacles for people to get to jobs is to relocate. If we gave them a low-interest loan that would allow them to move to places where there is low unemployment and where there are jobs, it would make a lot of sense. Finally, it adopts the SKILLS Act that has passed the House of Representatives, which consolidates 35 Federal programs into 9 programs so you don't have all of this duplication and overlap in all of these Federal programs for worker training and shifts that resource out to the States where States can design programs that actually prepare and equip the people in their States for the jobs that are available. Those are the types of solutions we ought to be talking about rather than top-down, heavyhanded, government-driven solutions that make it more difficult to create jobs and is equivalent to throwing a big wet blanket on the American economy at the time we can least afford it. My State of South Dakota is a good example. We have balanced our budget every year since 1889. We have zero personal income tax, zero corporate income tax, and we have a very well-trained, hard-working, educated workforce. We have a good climate for doing business with a light regulatory touch. We have a low unemployment rate and a vibrant economy mainly because we understand that it isn't the government that creates jobs. When the Senate Democrats and the President come out with the election-year, poll-tested agenda, which is clearly driven simply to try to generate votes in the midterm elections rather than actually solve the problems--and it says that in the stories. The stories are very transparent about what they are trying to do. We ought to be focused on things that actually create jobs, such as passing the Keystone Pipeline, passing trade promotion authority, and looking at real solutions that do more than just treat symptoms, and actually get at the problems. The problem is we have too many people in this economy who have been unemployed for a long period of time. We need to get them back to work and get the economy growing faster than 1.9 percent a year. If we get growth back up to 3 or 4 percent a year, it will dramatically change the future for middle-class families in this country, and that is what we ought to be focused on. I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor to discuss the fourth anniversary of ObamaCare. Four years ago this past Sunday the President signed his health care legislation into law. The measure was jammed through Congress on a party-line vote against the strong objections of Republicans and the American people. Democrats and the President assured everyone this opposition was temporary. When people find out what is in the law, they will like it, Democrats and the President promised. Four years later, however, that isn't the case. The majority of the American people still disapprove of the law. Why do they still disapprove? Because the President's health care law has failed in every possible way. We have canceled health care plans. We have seen people who have lost their doctors and lost their hospitals. We have seen soaring premiums, higher out-of-pocket costs, lower pay, disastrous Web sites that have left thousands in limbo, confusion in the health insurance market, and widespread damage to the economy. The President's law has failed so badly that some of the President's strongest supporters are rejecting it. Young people whose support of the President was so successful in his election and reelection are turning their backs on the President's law. Unions which pushed for the law's passage and the President's reelection are now protesting that the law will destroy their health care plans and damage workers' livelihoods. Democrats running for reelection are running from the health care law as fast as they can for fear that association with ObamaCare will doom their chances of reelection. People are finding out what the law truly means for them and they don't like it. When the President was trying to pass his health care law, he made a few promises. I think a lot of people remember when the President said: If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. He said: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. The reality of the law has proven to be quite different. Six million Americans so far have lost their health care plans as a direct result of ObamaCare, and far too many of them found their only alternative was a plan that offered less coverage for more money. Millions of other Americans have lost their doctors and hospitals. ObamaCare placed a number of new taxes and regulations on insurance companies that left them facing huge cost increases. In an effort to manage their costs without raising health care premiums even further, many companies have narrowed their network of doctors and hospitals, especially in exchange plans. As a result, many Americans have lost doctors they have been seeing literally for years. Cancer patients in the middle of treatment have found their doctors are not covered by the new health care plans. Patients are also discovering their hospital options are now far more limited, as many plans exclude top hospitals. A recent article in the Associated Press reported: Some of America's best cancer hospitals are off-limits to many of the people now signing up for coverage under the Nation's new health care program. Practically speaking, the AP reports: Those patients may not be able to get the most advanced treatment including clinical trials of new medications. In a particularly cruel twist, many of the patients who lost access to doctors and hospitals didn't know they would lose access when they signed up for their plans as provider information on the health care exchange Web sites is often, to quote a Business Week article, ``missing, wrong, or difficult to navigate.'' In addition to promising that patients would be able to keep their health care plans and their doctors, the President promised his health care law would reduce health care costs, but in fact health care costs have only risen since the Affordable Care Act passed. Families and individuals who were effectively dumped into the exchanges have frequently found that their only health care options cost far more than their previous health care plans and offer far less. Family shopping for so-called silver plans now can face deductibles up to $12,700, a staggering amount of money that very few families are able to afford. For many families that number represents a full quarter of their income before taxes. Last week news emerged that already-high premiums on the exchanges are set to increase substantially next year. This was the headline in The Hill newspaper: O-Care premiums about to skyrocket. The Fiscal Times reported that Americans should ``expect premium prices to soar.'' In fact, The Hill reported that ``health industry officials say that ObamaCare-related premiums will double in some parts of the country.'' The Wall Street Journal reports that ``one recent analysis finds that 80% of firms offering employee coverage have raised deductibles or other cost-sharing provisions, or are considering doing so . . . to avoid a new tax that's set to hit more lavish plans in 2018 and to counter health-cost increases. Thus, employee out-of-pocket costs could rise.'' Perhaps a more accurate name for the law would have been the ``Unaffordable Care Act.'' The havoc ObamaCare has wreaked on our health care system would be ample reason to dislike the law. ObamaCare's damage isn't limited to our health care system; it is also damaging our economy. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reports that ObamaCare will result in 2\1/2\ million fewer full-time workers over the next 10 years and reduce wages by more than $1 trillion. Those are real-world economic impacts. Household income has already dropped by almost $3,700 over the course of the Obama Presidency, and American families are already struggling. Unemployment is high and economic growth is sluggish. The last thing we need is fewer workers and lower wages. On top of that, ObamaCare is discouraging employers from hiring and reducing employees' hours, thanks to the slew of new taxes, mandates, and regulations ObamaCare levies on businesses large and small. Chief among these, of course, is the requirement that businesses with 50 or more employees provide health insurance to all of their full-time employees, which the law defines as those working 30 hours or more. If they don't do that, they pay fines. Faced with this mandate, State and local governments, nonprofits, and businesses with small profit margins have been forced to cut employees' hours to avoid health care bills or fines they can't afford to pay. Other businesses have been forced to keep their businesses under 50 workers instead of creating new jobs and hiring new people. Larger businesses are also deciding not to hire or even letting workers go as a result of the costly taxes and regulations the health care law imposes. According to a recent study, ObamaCare's tax on lifesaving medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps, has already affected more than 30,000 jobs in the medical device industry. I don't care what party you are from, you cannot think this law is working. Our health care system may have needed reform, but this was not the way to do it. Instead of improving our health care system, ObamaCare is making it far worse. It is time to repeal this law and pursue real solutions to our health care challenges. Instead of the failing government health care exchanges, we could create affordable health care plans by allowing the purchase of insurance across State lines. This would allow for interstate competition when it comes to the purchase and sale of insurance. That would increase competition among health plans, which in turn would drive prices down, not up, as is happening now. We could allow businesses to pool together to negotiate lower rates with health insurance companies. We could improve high-risk pools to help people with preexisting conditions and expand health savings accounts to allow families to put away money tax free to pay for future health care-related expenses. We could end the rampant lawsuit abuse that is driving up the cost of care for all Americans. We do need real reform of our health care system--the kind of reform that will actually drive down costs and expand access to care while allowing Americans, not the government, to make decisions about the health care plans they choose and the doctors they visit. ObamaCare is doing the opposite. ObamaCare isn't working. We need to repeal it now and replace it with real health care reforms so that Americans don't have to endure another 4 years like the last 4. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I wish to honor the life of Thelma Sayler. Thelma Sayler was born in Lynch, NE, on September 3, 1924, to Mads and Ruth (Christensen) Nelson. In 1927, she moved with her parents and younger sister, Donna Faye, in a Model T with the company of 24 chickens, to a one-room ``shack'' north of White River. Ten years later her father tore down an old house and hauled the lumber in the Model T, using it to build a new house for the family. They moved into their new house just 1 day before Christmas, where Thelma had her own bedroom, which was a mansion to her. Since there were no boys, the girls helped with farming, ranching, and chores around the house. Thelma liked to remember how she, her sister and mother, during the dirty thirties, used aprons to shoo away the Mormon crickets to save their garden. Thelma graduated from White River High School in 1942. After high school, she traveled with her Aunt and Uncle to Oregon to work in the shipyards during the war. When traveling, she sat in the back of a pickup on a chair. In 1949, Thelma, and her daughters Karen and Sharon, moved back to White River. A couple years later they moved north to the ``Old Rassy Place.'' In 1953, Thelma accepted a teaching job at the Cottonwood School that was about 2 miles from their home. In 1954, she taught in Jones County. When she started teaching, she worked without certification for a number of years. She eventually started taking classes during the summer through Black Hills State Teacher College, and earned her bachelor's degree in 1969. In 1971, Thelma and her family moved 10 miles north of White River to the ``Teddy Fredericks Place,'' where she then began teaching second grade in Murdo. She taught in Murdo until retiring in 1987. Even after retirement, Thelma continued her passion to educate, which included volunteering at the school, substitute teaching, and even providing snacks for students and staff. Thelma was a lifelong member of the Cottonwood Ladies Aide and volunteered at the Mellette County Museum & Library, blood drives, and the Grand Stand Committee. She was also a long-time member of the United Methodist Church in Murdo. Thelma Sayler passed away at the age of 89 on February 9, 2014, at her daughter's house in White River. She will be forever remembered for her love of teaching and for all that she has done for her community. I was among Thelma Sayler's many students. She was a teacher in the truest and best sense of the word, and I am forever grateful for her investment in me. She was patient and kind but tough when needed--and most importantly, she was passionate about seeing kids learn and truly committed to her work. Like so many others who passed through her classroom, I was blessed to have her as a teacher and later in life to call her a friend.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I want to compliment my colleagues from Wyoming and Texas for talking about the issues that are important to the American people. People in this country care about jobs and the economy. I think one of the reasons there were not more Democratic Senators down here last night is because a lot of them, as some pointed out, hit the snooze button, didn't want to come down here and talk about an issue which they realize ranked very low in people's assessment of what is really important in their daily lives. I think that is probably why most Americans, by and large, tuned out the all- night session we had on the floor. We did have a number of Senate Democrats who came down and engaged in what they referred to as a talkathon on climate change. I don't know who coined the term ``talkathon'' to describe the event, but it is a perfect term. It really fits, since the event was all talk and no action. In fact, writing ahead of the talkathon, USA Today noted, and I quote: The Democratic effort is cause for some confusion, because these Senators are calling for action in a chamber they control, but without any specific legislation to offer up for a vote or any timetable for action this year. Well, that is exactly right. Last night's filibuster was not designed to advance any legislation, nor was it a protest about the lack of legislation. After all, the Democrats control the Chamber and they can bring up a bill any time they want. Although last night's event may have had all the trappings of significant Senate action, it was nothing but talk. If the Democrats really think government action on climate change is so important, one would assume last night they would have used it to debate a bill or try to persuade their leadership to bring one up on the floor. But they didn't, because it is an election year and Democrats are already deeply worried about their election prospects, and they know very well the American people do not like the climate change legislation they have offered up. The climate change bills Democrats have proposed almost invariably involve tax hikes that would drive the cost of energy sky high for ordinary families and kill jobs, all for extremely dubious environmental gains. The last time Congress debated the cap-and-trade bill was in 2009. That bill was estimated to destroy 2.5 million jobs. Perhaps that is why several Democrats who represent energy-producing States didn't make it to last night's talkathon. They must be tired of defending more job-destroying policies. For families who are already struggling with reduced income and high health care costs that have characterized the Obama economy for the past 5 years, increased energy prices and more job losses are the last thing they want to face. Democrats know that climate change legislation is a nonstarter in an election year, but they still have their radical environmental base to worry about, the same base that is pushing the President not to approve the Keystone Pipeline despite five separate environmental reviews that found its impact on the environment would be negligible. Last night's talkathon, designed for maximum media exposure, allowed Democrats to assure their donors that they are focused on climate change without actually having to do anything, anything that would be difficult or politically damaging, such as going on the record and actually voting for a specific bill. Last month Gallup released a poll on America's top concerns. Climate change didn't even make the top 10. Jobs and the economy, on the other hand, came in at the very top, not surprisingly. The American people have a very good assessment of what is important. Gallup polling shows that those two issues have been among Americans' top five concerns for most of the past 6 years. Despite this, however, Democrats have shown very little inclination to take real action on the economy. In fact, most of their policies are making our economic situation worse. The policy that is doing the most economic damage is ObamaCare. Any way you look at it, ObamaCare means bad economic news for just about everybody. Millions of Americans have had the plans they like canceled, and far too many of them have found their ObamaCare alternative will cost more and offer them less. Families around the country have enrolled in exchange plans that have left them wondering how they are going to be able to afford the plan's $10,000 and $12,000 deductibles. Low-income seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage are wondering how they will afford the premium hikes and the benefit reductions that will soon hit them, thanks to ObamaCare's Medicare cuts. Eleven million small business workers are not sure how a bill that promised more affordable health care is actually raising--raising--their health care costs. Then there are the businesses that are changing their plans to hire new workers because ObamaCare's mandates and fees mean they cannot afford to expand. The workers who are having their hours cut because ObamaCare means their employer cannot afford to keep them on as full- time workers. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated ObamaCare will mean 2.5 million fewer full-time workers and approximately $1 trillion in lower wages. That is a lot of lost economic opportunity. But you do not have to take my word for it, because Republicans are not the only people who are worried about ObamaCare's effects on the economy and on the middle class. A lot of the President's allies are worried too. Democrats who are running in red States are running scared and are starting to talk about the need to amend the law. And then there are the unions. Unions are, of course, historically Democratic supporters and they were instrumental in getting ObamaCare passed in the first place and helping to get the President reelected. Now unions are rethinking their support. At the end of last week UNITE HERE, which is a huge union with over one-quarter of a million members from all over the hospitality industry, published a white paper on ObamaCare which they called ``The Irony of ObamaCare: Making Inequality Worse.'' What does the document say? Well, it says what Republicans have been saying all along, that ObamaCare is going to make things much worse for the middle class. I want to quote from the first page: Ironically, the administration's own signature healthcare victory poses one of the most immediate challenges to redressing inequality. . . . without smart fixes, the Affordable Care Act threatens the middle class with higher premiums, loss of hours, and a shift to part-time work and less comprehensive coverage. That is from a white paper put out by one of the Nation's major unions. In 12 pages that document demolishes the administration's claim that the bill will help the middle class. It takes aim at the administration's ridiculous assertion that the law will not discourage business expansion or result in employers cutting hours. Worker hours, the union points out, have already been cut at nearly a third of U.S. franchise businesses. Other businesses have chosen to replace full-time workers with part time workers, and still others have announced their intention of staying below 50 employees to avoid being hit by the worst of the law's mandates. The union also points out the likelihood of employers dumping employee health plans thanks to the law's requirements, leaving employees to obtain health care in the exchanges. Here is what the union has to say about dropped employees, and again I quote: For dropped employees, being pushed onto the exchanges will mean a major loss of income for health benefits. Families moving to the exchanges may lose between 4 percent and 25 percent of income to maintain equivalent benefits. Again, that is from the union white paper on ObamaCare. Major loss of income or health benefits, families within the exchanges may lose between 4 and 25 percent of income--between 4 percent and 25 percent of income. We are not talking about rich families here. We are talking about families who are making $40,000 or $50,000 or $60,000 a year. Even a 4- percent income loss would make a huge dent in these families' budgets. A 25-percent income loss for a family making that amount of money would be devastating. Finally, the union concludes by pointing out a study in the Brookings Institution--again, not exactly a bastion of conservatism--that shows that those making below $25,000 will get some benefit of the Affordable Care Act. But those right above them, families with incomes of $20,000 to $38,000, will lose income. ``Only in Washington,'' the report concludes, ``could asking the bottom of the middle class to finance health care for the poorest families be seen as reducing inequality.'' Again, that is a quote from that report by UNITE HERE labor union. I want to remind everyone this is not a Republican document. It is a document produced by some of President Obama's biggest supporters. In fact, UNITE HERE was actually the first union to endorse then-Senator Obama in 2008. So this isn't an organization seeking to damage the President politically or to provide Republicans with talking points. But like so many Americans around the country, UNITE HERE has been forced to an inescapable conclusion, and that conclusion is that ObamaCare just isn't working. It is doing the opposite of what it was intended to do. It is making health care more expensive for families. It is discouraging employees from hiring. It is reducing Americans' health care choices. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent for an additional minute.

Mr. THUNE. It is reducing Americans' health care choices, and it is encouraging employers to cut hours and benefits. Our health care system may have needed reform, but this was not the way to do it. Even the President's strongest supporters are having buyers' remorse, and a lot of Americans are hurting right now thanks to the President's health care law. As we hear from more Americans, South Dakotans, people all across this country, who are struggling under the law, I hope the Democrats here who I believe privately are rethinking their vote for this law will have the courage to publicly join us in calling for its repeal. Madam President, I yield the floor.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I, too, want to lend my voice--after listening to the discussion that just occurred on the floor--because I don't think there is any group of Americans who are more deserving of our support than the men and women who have worn the uniform of this country and so bravely and courageously defended America's freedom and our democracy. I hope, such as my colleagues who spoke just a minute ago, we can come to an agreement that would allow us to do the things on which we agree. There are so many things on which we agree--I think 80 percent of the debate last week between what the Senator from Vermont proposed and the Senator from North Carolina proposed were the same--that we ought to be able at least to do those we agree on and address some of the very vital and urgent needs our veterans community has. So I would lend my voice to supporting efforts to get things moving. There is a bill that has come over from the House of Representatives that addresses many of these issues, not as comprehensively as was proposed last week by the Senator from Vermont and the Senator from North Carolina. Obviously, we have some issues that need to be addressed that will support and help those Americans who have borne the cost of battle for our country and defended America's freedoms, but we should work together to find that agreement and to move legislation forward that would address those needs. The Budget Mr. President, I come to the floor, however, to talk about the pain that ObamaCare and the Obama economy are causing Americans. CBS News/New York Times released a new poll last week finding there is widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama: 59 percent of the American people are disappointed in the President's Presidency, the poll found, while 63 percent think the country is on the wrong track. Just 38 percent of the people in this country approve of the President's handling of the economy, and 39 percent approve of his handling of foreign policy. When it comes to the President's signature law, ObamaCare, just 6 percent--6 percent--of the American people think the law is working well. A whopping 92 percent support changing the health care law or repealing it altogether. In similar news, Gallup reported last month that its Economic Confidence Index was negative for every single State. In other words, the majority of Americans in every State have a generally negative view of the economy. Only in DC--in the District of Columbia, home of too many disconnected Democratic politicians--did Gallup find a net positive view of the economy. Needless to say, the American people are, to put it mildly, dissatisfied. Why are they dissatisfied? Because they spent 5 years waiting for the relief they were promised and it hasn't arrived. A Pew Research Center poll in September found that 63 percent of the American people believe the Nation's economic system is no more secure today than it was before the 2008 market crash. The same poll also found the majority of Americans report household incomes and the job situation have hardly recovered at all from the recession. President Obama may have inherited a difficult economic situation, but he has had 5 years to make it better. Instead, he is making things worse. Over the past 5 years household income has declined by $3,600. Income inequality is at its highest point literally since the Great Depression. The number of Americans receiving food stamps has soared from over 32 million to now more than 47 million--almost 48 million Americans receiving food stamps. That means that one in five--literally one in five--American households is on food stamps. Ten million Americans are unemployed, almost 4 million of them for more than 6 months, and the labor force participation rate is at Jimmy Carter-era lows, thanks in part to literally thousands of Americans who have simply given up hope of ever finding a job and dropped out of the labor force altogether. Then there is the President's health care law. The President promises a health care law with lower costs while allowing you to keep the plan and the doctor you like. In reality health care costs have skyrocketed and Americans have been losing their doctors and their health care plans in droves. Seniors are being hit hard by cuts in the Medicare Advantage Program and lower income seniors are being hit the hardest. Meanwhile, businesses are struggling with the law's burdensome taxes and regulations, while workers struggle with reduced hours and fewer opportunities. A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office found that the President's health care law will reduce the number of full-time workers by up to 2.5 million over the next 10 years. Then there is last week's report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that found that 11 million small businesses are going to see workers have their premiums increased as a result of ObamaCare. Yesterday, in an attempt to improve the Democrats' steadily worsening election prospects in November, the administration announced yet another--another--ObamaCare delay for selecting health plans, as well as a pardon for the administration's union friends. It is no wonder Americans are so unhappy. Despite the abundance of evidence that their policies have failed, the Democrats and the President continue to dismiss Americans' stories. In fact, the Senate majority leader had the gall the other day to get up on the floor of the Senate and say every single ObamaCare horror story is untrue. That is right. Instead of looking at the overwhelming evidence that ObamaCare just isn't working, and maybe rethinking his support of that law, the majority leader decided to accuse every single American who has had a bad experience with ObamaCare of lying about his or her story. Now that is a lot of denial right there. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result. Yet that is exactly what the Democrats and President are doing. Instead of looking at the evidence of the past 5 years and rethinking their policies, Democrats are piling on more of the same. For Americans hurting for jobs and opportunities, Democrats have recently taken to advocating a hike in the minimum wage--a policy, I might add, that the Congressional Budget Office said would result in up to 1 million fewer jobs and a policy that would hit the lowest income workers the hardest. Then there is the President's budget. The President's budget proposal would have been a great opportunity for the President to rethink some of these failed strategies of the past 5 years and to focus on controlling spending and promoting economic growth. Instead the President produced a political document that panders to the far leftwing of his party and eschews any type of meaningful reform. His budget won't control spending. Instead, it increases spending by 63 percent over the next 10 years and it adds another $8.3 trillion to our $17 trillion debt. To pay for some of that spending, the administration is proposing even more tax increases, over $1 trillion worth of new tax increases on top of the $1.7 trillion in tax increases the President has already gotten since he came to office. The administration has even backed away from changes to our broken entitlement programs, such as gradually raising the eligibility age for Medicare, which would have helped put the Medicare Program on a stronger financial footing going forward. And as for balancing the budget, well, that is a fantasy. The President's budget doesn't even pretend to balance. With 2 years left in his Presidency, it appears the President has given up on governing and resigned himself to playing election year politics. His lameduck budget will further grow the Federal Government while the middle class continues to shrink. If the President and Democrats really want to help Americans the way they claim, there are real steps they could take right now to start turning our economy around and putting Americans back to work. Instead of a job-killing minimum wage hike, they could support initiatives to reduce the cost of hiring and give businesses incentives to hire workers. Instead of perpetually extending unemployment benefits, they could support legislation, such as a bill I introduced to provide relocation resources to allow the long-term unemployed to move to areas where the job market is stronger, and strengthen Federal worker training programs. This would help give the unemployed what they really want--not months of meager government benefits but steady, good-paying jobs with the potential for growth. Speaking of jobs, if the President wanted to create jobs immediately, he could easily do that today with a stroke of the pen that he talks about: Approve the bipartisan Keystone Pipeline and the 42,000-plus jobs it would support. All it would take is a stroke of the pen he keeps talking about. Then there is trade promotion authority. The President did talk about trade promotion authority in his State of the Union Address, but he abandoned it shortly afterwards as a result of some Democrats' political concerns about pushing the policy in an election year. Trade promotion authority would help farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and job creators gain access to 1 billion new consumers around the globe. If the President were serious about creating jobs for Americans, he would be urging the majority leader to take up this bipartisan legislation today. Finally, the President should be supporting bipartisan efforts to repeal the costly medical device tax in his health care law, the tax on pacemakers and insulin pumps. According to a recent study, more than 30,000 jobs in the medical device industry have been affected by this burdensome provision in the law. If this tax isn't eliminated soon, even more jobs in the industry are going to be lost or sent overseas. It is not surprising that the American people are unhappy. ObamaCare and the Obama economy have done nothing to ease the struggles Americans have faced since the recession, and instead of proposing new initiatives, the Democrats and the President continue to push for more of the same, and to double down on the same failed policies. Well, 5 years is long enough. It is time for Democrats to abandon their failed economic experiments and to work with Republicans to pass legislation that will actually create jobs and opportunities and put Americans back to work. We can do that. We can do that today. The President can pick up the phone he talks about and call the majority leader. Ask him to bring up any one of these initiatives I have mentioned on which there is broad bipartisan support: the Keystone Pipeline, trade promotion authority--initiatives that would grow jobs-- repealing the medical device tax. There were 79 votes in the Senate on amendments to the budget last year in support of appealing that onerous tax. There are things we can do together, that we can do today to create jobs and grow and expand this economy, lower the cost of hiring people in this country, so we can get more Americans back to work with good- paying jobs that will help lift them higher in their economic circumstances and give them a better and a brighter future. I hope that is what the President will choose to do rather than following through on so many of these election year ploys, if you will, that are simply designed to help win elections come election day rather than doing something that is meaningful to help middle-class families and the American people. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 12 minutes.

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn would have voted -``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. THUNE

Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn). Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cornyn) would have voted ``yea.''